Saturday Fire In Mercer Destroys Structure

Date 2014/1/27 9:13:32 | Topic: News

Fire early Saturday at Mercer destroyed a residence in a structure that once housed a Mercer Assembly of God Church.No injuries were reported.

Mercer Fire Protection District Firefighter, Ben Fisher, said flames were through the roof when firefighters arrived on the scene on Cherry Street around 5:45 Saturday morning. There was a water outage at Mercer at the time because of damage at a City of Mercer pump station just north of Princeton, where Mercer gets its water.

Firefighters from the Mercer Fire Protection District used water on their trucks and received assistance from the Mercer County Fire Protection District at Princeton and the fire department at Mercer. The trucks were refilled with water by traveling 5 miles to Lineville.

Firefighters were able to save another residence about 20 feet away from the structure which burned. Fisher said the structure that was saved once was the parsonage for the former church.

Firefighter Fisher indicated the former parsonage got warm, but the only damage was to tarps which melted. Those tarps were around the foundation.

The former church and the former parsonage were separate residences. The names of the persons who resided there were not available.

Firefighters brought the blaze under control in about 90 minutes, but stood by around 4 hours to watch for flareups.

Firefighter Ben Fisher said the blaze was believed to have been caused by a problem with a wood stove. He said the fire started around the wood stove, and was not suspicious.